Stephen Gary Wozniak – A Former Prodigy Who Co-Founded Apple Inc.

Stephen Gary Wozniak, who is also popular by his nickname “Woz“, is an American computer programmer, electronics engineer, philanthropist, and technology entrepreneur. He is famous because he co-founded Apple Inc. with business partner Steve Jobs. The company later became the largest information technology company by revenue in the world. It is also the world’s largest company by market capitalization. Stephen & Steve are widely famous as two prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution because of their work at Apple.

Early life

Stephen Gary Wozniak was born as the son of Margaret Louise Wozniak & Francis Jacob “Jerry” Wozniak in San Jose, California. His father was an engineer for Lockheed Corporation. Stephen did his graduation from Homestead High School in 1968, in Cupertino, California.

The name on the birth certificate of Wozniak is “Stephan Gary Wozniak”. But, his mother intended it to be spelled “Stephen”, which is what he uses. Wozniak has also mentioned that his surname Polish and has spoken of his Polish and Ukrainian ancestry. In the early 1970s, Stephen Wozniak’s blue box design earned him the nickname “Berkeley Blue” in the phreaking community.

The Co-Founder Of Apple – Stephen Gary Wozniak

Wozniak started developing the Apple I into the computer that launched Apple in 1975. He and Steve first began marketing it the following year. He primarily made the design of Apple II, in 1977. It is one of the first mass-produced microcomputers that were highly successful. Wozniak had a major influence with software engineer Jef Raskinover over the initial development of the original Apple Macintosh concepts from 1979 to 1981. Wozniak left Apple in 1985 permanently and founded CL 9. Moreover, he created the first programmable universal remote that was released in 1987. He then got into several other philanthropic ventures and businesses throughout his career, focusing largely on technology in K–12 schools.

In the last few years, Wozniak has funded multiple entrepreneurial efforts dealing in areas such as telecommunications, technology, flash memory, and ecology, pop culture conventions, technical education, etc.

Awards & Honors

The amazing former prodigy, Stephen Wozniak, won numbers of awards & honors due to his skills. Some of them are as follows:

• In 1979, Wozniak got the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award. In 1985, he received the National Medal of Technology along with Steve Jobs from US President.
• He donated funds later to create the “Woz Lab” at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
• In 1998, he got the title of a Fellow of the Computer History Museum. He won this for co-founding Apple Computer and inventing the Apple I personal computer.
• In September 2000, Wozniak got into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and got the 7th Annual Heinz Award in 2001 for Technology, the Economy, and Employment.
• He got the 5th Annual Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in 2004.
• In 2011, he won the Isaac Asimov Science Award from the American Humanist Association.
• Wozniak won the Global Award of the President of Armenia for his incredible contribution to Humanity Through IT in 2011.

Also Read: Michael Kevin Kearney, a former prodigy to set several world records